I went to Barack Obama’s rally last Wednesday at the coliseum in Richmond, Virginia. In some ways, it was like other Obama rallies I’ve attended. It was packed to the rafters, about 13,000 people in all. It had the same soundtrack. (Does anyone who has covered the campaign ever want to hear “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” again?) And it was filled with wildly enthusiastic, worshipful Obamaniacs.
But this rally felt a little different from those in the past. The smell of victory was in the air.
Recommended Stories
You could just tell that people felt it. They’re ready to win, and they believe they’ll be there soon. Obama’s job lately has been to keep them fired up while at the same time warning them against overconfidence. “I am hopeful about the outcome,” he told the crowd, heaping a load of understatement on recent poll results. “But we cannot let up.”
A few days earlier, I went to a John McCain rally in Woodbridge. I wouldn’t say the smell of defeat was in the air, but it wouldn’t be going too far to say there was a lot of concern. If you had to describe what the Republican faithful are doing in Virginia, you’d say they’re keeping hope alive.
Before McCain appeared, I wandered around the crowd asking people if they thought he could win.
“Yes, yes, I do ,” a woman told me. “I’ll look you straight in the eye and say it: Yes, I do.” (I took the “straight in the eye” part to say, You might not believe it, but I truly think he’s going to win.)
“That’s a tough question,” another woman told me. “I’m hoping the polls are not correct.”
“Actually yes,” said a man. “I still am optimistic. I haven’t given up. We keep hearing the polls are a ten- or 12-point lead, but I haven’t seen it.”
It turned out that the man, Don Raines, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who lives in Leesburg, is one of the most dedicated volunteers McCain has in the Old Dominion.
“I do calls two nights a week,” Raines told me. “I’ve hosted four debate parties, I’ve hosted an acceptance speech party, canvassed five neighborhoods, made signs, and shuttled senior citizens who wanted to come to the rally today.”
If every Republican were like Don Raines, John McCain would probably be leading in Virginia. But it’s not just Virginia. Everywhere you go, Republicans are trying their best to keep going, keep at it, to not give up hope. Democrats are fighting overconfidence. Republicans are fighting despair.
When they look at the polls, they’re genuinely confused. As I write this, the RealClearPolitics average of national polls shows Obama leading McCain by about seven points. That average is culled from 15 surveys taken over a period of seven days. (Is this the most over-polled election in history?)
Two of those polls show Obama leading by a single point. Two others show him leading by four points. And then there are four polls that show him leading by ten, 11, 13, and 14 points, respectively.
“We’re a few points down,” McCain said on Tuesday in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. “The national media has written us off. Just the other day, Senator Obama’s campaign announced that he is choosing his cabinet. He’s measuring the drapes…But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”
Even if you are irritated by the number of times McCain says “my friends,” you’ve got to like the sentiment.
There’s a lot to criticize in the way McCain has conducted his campaign. I, for one, wish he hadn’t ruled Rev. Jeremiah Wright off limits for the purpose of negative ads.
But as Republicans look at this race, they should remember the incredible headwind McCain is flying into — a headwind stronger and more daunting than any candidate has faced in decades.
I recently wrote a cover story for National Review in which I discussed the obstacles McCain has encountered in this race. I was going to list three, then decided to do five, and ended up discussing ten.
Just tick them off. There’s the incredible difficulty in succeeding a two-term president of your own party; the even harder mission of succeeding a two-term president of your own party who has a 70 percent disapproval rating; the right-track/wrong-track polls that show 90 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction; the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans; the party identification gap; the financial crisis; the war in Iraq; gloom and defeatism among Republicans in Congress; Obama’s fundraising advantage; and finally, McCain’s chronic problems with the Republican base.
Only one of those problems is McCain’s doing. The rest are simply the hand he was dealt, and I would say that for all his mistakes, McCain is fighting heroically against terrible odds.
I wouldn’t have expected any different.
The Obama campaign has taken to calling McCain “erratic,” suggesting that he would be unreliable in a crisis. In my observation, he’s just the opposite.
When things are going badly, McCain keeps his head and keeps on going; I doubt there is anyone in the world who can face overwhelming odds better than he can. It’s when McCain is riding high that he can get cocky and occasionally careless, and I think it’s fair to say that’s not the problem now.
So McCain carries on, and the Don Raineses of the world keep making calls and knocking on doors. There are still nine days to go, they say, and who knows what could happen?
It’s certainly true that there have been times in this race when real changes took place over the course of nine days. So even though things look bad at the moment, and even though they might stay that way, McCain would be crazy — and very un-McCain-like — to give up now.
Sunday Reflection contributor Byron York covers the White House for National Review.
